DB1 Walmart

The Corporation I am choosing is Wal-Mart, which is a retail corporation serving communities with a concept of everyday lower prices in a pleasant and friendly environment. The following are three “environmental forces” marketing concepts that I believe the company should consider.

Concept 1: Social Forces (Kerin, Hartley & Rudelius, 2007, p. 61-65)
Definition: “..the demographic characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, income, and occupation”. (Kerin, Hartley & Rudelius, 2007, p. 61-65)

Discussion: As the population of our country continues to grow, we will see notable changes in the areas of racial and ethnic diversity. The market will need to change in order to adapt with to the change. Companies will develop new marketing strategies known as multicultural marketing that are very diverse in culture, communication, lifestyles of different race. Since people have different values and beliefs, businesses will be created to fit individual consumer needs and wants.

Walmart is a corporation that offers a wide variety of merchandise and services to millions of people across the world. They

Concept 2: Economics Forces (Kerin, Heartly, & Rudelius, 2007, p.61-66)

Definition: …“Income, expenditures, and resources that affect the cost of running a business or household”.

Discussion: In today’s inflationary and recessionary economy, people continue to struggle trying to make ends meet. For example, prices continue to rise at the gas pumps and more people are losing their jobs. In an effort to help Walmart strives to offer the best possible prices on the products customers need. They are working with their suppliers to introduce more energy efficient products that will save consumers money. In order for Walmart to continue offering the lowest prices in town they must continue to find ways to reduce their operational cost in proportion with today’s inflated economy.

Concept 3: Competitive Forces (Kerin, Hartley & Rudelius, 2007, pp. 69-70)

Definition: Competitive Forces “refers to the alternative firms that could provide a product to satisfy the same specific market’s needs” (Kerin, Hartley & Rudelius, 2007, p. 69)

Discussion: Without competition, companies such as, Wal-Mart could set any price they wanted for their product. Wal-Mart is frequently referred to as the giant in retail sales hence, a number of small business close because they cannot compete, whereas other retail stores strive to be next door to Wal-Mart. The concept of retailers choosing to be next door to Wal-Mart is because they carry such a wide variety of items from beauty supplies to groceries. Retail specialty shops feed off Wal-Mart because they do not offer the large selection of a particular item that the specialty store does, which increases the possibility of the consumer purchasing their product at the specialty store. (Bhatnagar, 2006). Even though, Wal-Marts goal is to meet all the needs of the community including customer service this is an area for improvement.

References

Bhatnagar, Parija. (February, 2006). Leeching off Wal-Mart

Retrieved May 17, 2008 from

CNNMoney.com

Kerin, R.A., Hartley, S.W., Rudelius, W., 2007. Marketing: the Core (2nd ed.). McGraw-

Hill Irwin.